POP demo "not planned"

By Johnny Minkley Published 14 July, 2008

Too many are "awful", says producer.

Hot on the heels of the Far Cry 2 team's decision not to produce a consumer demo of its open-world shooter, Prince of Persia producer Ben Mattes has confirmed that there's no plans to do one for the Ubisoft Montreal stable-mate either.

"Not planned," Mattes told us at the studio earlier this month. "Doing demos of open-world games is a technical challenge; plus we're not convinced we need to. It's a brand that has some history, some built-in fan-base and we can benefit a little bit from that. Whether you like Sands of Time, Warrior Within or Two Thrones, chances are you're going to love this game because there are elements of all of those in it."

Mattes also noted that a demo can often do more harm to game's chanced than good. "There's just so many awful demos," he added. "Let's face it, releasing a demo when you also have an E3 version to put together, and you're beta etc... It's not the kind of thing that' s going to allow you to put together a really polished demo.

"There's a reality of production we have to live with which means if we did put together a demo there's a potential that it wouldn't be at the level we want it to be. Then what are you doing? You're doing your game a disservice by putting it in players' hands before it's ready. Nobody wants that."

Fair enough. The game's due out on PS3, 360 and PC - alongside a unique DS version - this Christmas. Our detailed impressions of the E3 build are elsewhere on Eurogamer today.

Picture of Johnny.

About Johnny Minkley

Eurogamer TV's Johnny Minkley is a veteran journalist with a lifelong passion for games and the games industry. He uses Twitter more than most people use air.

Read more articles from Johnny by visiting the Johnny Minkley archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (12) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • MrFlintBlackman #1 4 years ago

    So what there are saying is.....Ubisoft can't make a decent demo?

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #2 4 years ago

    Bullshit.

    Ubisoft apparently have a new 'no demos' policy. Which is puzzling, since the last few Pops had quite good demos. There is plenty of time to put a demo together at the very end of the production of a video game. Because of lead times, it can be finished and certified after the main version has gone out the door and it'll still be on Live or PSN two to four weeks before tha geme comes out, just in time to build anticipation before release.

    And that goes for open-world games just as much as it does for linear ones.

  • Darren #3 4 years ago

    In my experience demos are only awful if the game itself is awful but a game without a demo is one I'm less tempted to buy unless it gets really, really good reviews (mostly 80%+). I'm not saying this game is going to be bad but it's disappointing that developers are shying away from doing demos because they think they'll hurt sales. For a lot of people a demo is the only real way they can gauge whether they'll like the game or not...

  • makeamazing #4 4 years ago

    Wonder if this is going to be the new standard... sorry no demos of our games because it will be awful or because its a 3 hour game we dont want to give you the first hour of it in a demo :D

    Ok thats being alittle bit unfair... :D

  • menage #5 4 years ago

    Well, seeing as AC was a waste of my money, I'm hard pressed to buy this without a sample.

    So I probably won't buy this.





  • Eraysor #6 4 years ago

    A demo has sold me many games. It's pretty idiotic if you decide not to do a demo because other developers make bad ones. If that was the case, you could make a good one and stand out from the crowd.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #7 4 years ago

    I'm not sure what all these 'bad demos' are he's on about. Burnout Paradise, perhaps, but I struggle to think of any others which have made me want a game less. Mind you, I avoided the Turning Point demo, but by all acounts that was fairly representative of quite a poor game.

  • menage #8 4 years ago

    @Mental

    Burnout had a great demo, only the game changed to much for me to like it.

  • Darren #9 4 years ago

    I've actually bought games after playing demos which I wouldn't have otherwise, e.g. Civilization Revolution, so IMO it's in the interest of the developers to release them (good ones that is) if they want to maximise sales of their games to people like me.

    Of course, if the game is bad then that won't work but I can't help thinking that games that had demos which went on to sell poorly where themselves poor games, e.g. Turning Point, Hour of Victory, Blacksite, Turok, etc., etc.

  • peterfll #10 4 years ago

    When developers \ publishers state demos for open worlds are too hard I always think "Crackdown".

    The Crackdown demo made me buy the game, which surely is what you're after?

  • Skywise #11 4 years ago

    After buying Virtua Fighter 5 without having played the demo I plan to hold on to a "no demo - no sale" policy.

    Because I loved The Sands of Time it might be "no demo - no full priced sale" for this series. I'm weak :p

  • m0thr4 #12 4 years ago

    Fuck 'em. If they're withholding demos, it's because they intend to deceive us. I work in software development and the only time we hold back on demos is when we know the product is not in a fit state to be seen. That's on an iterative development cycle where we're regularly showing the customer stuff during the development process (why don't video games companies adopt this model btw?). Video game companies generally only release their one playable demo at the very end of development, so when they withhold it, it's likely to be for damage limitation reasons.